Our final stop in Italy was the Cinque Terre, five tiny towns on the Italian Riviera that are separated by large cliffs. We stayed at the fourth town called Vernazza with our friends Sophie and Jay who had flown in from London for a long weekend. Cinque Terre involved lots of wine, a little exercise, pasta, a thunderstorm and catch ups with old friends.
Despite a slight red wine hangover, we spent our Saturday morning walking the hiking track between Vernazza and Montorosso. For someone who is ridiculously unfit it was quite a challenge but it made the frozen vodka limonatas at the end of the walk all the more rewarding. We spent the rest of the day drinking wine beside the Mediterranean Sea and partying at the local beach bar with Corona margaritas (I’m still don’t understand how a margarita with a Corona stuck in it tastes good but it just does).
Our next destination was Nice in the south of France. Nice is a pretty city with excellent food markets selling an array of fresh produce and of course fromage! We spent a lot of our time relaxing at Villefranche-sur-Mer, a beautiful beach a few stops by train from Nice. We also visited the town of Menton so Ryan could make the pilgrimage to the grave of the founder of rugby, William Webb Ellis.
I stumbled across the store Lou Froumai while on the hunt for the local specialty of mussels cooked in white wine and cream. Lou Froumai is the most beautiful fromagerie I have ever seen, with a big open cabinet of cheese. I chose a small goats cheese to sample that was produced by a farmer who milks his 40 goats by hand to produce small quantities of cheese. Amazing!
Chasing the Cheese 